Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Prime Minister on Saturday hinted that the missing jet MH 370 could have possibly been hijacked. “Based on new satellite information, we can say that systems on the aircraft were disabled. These were the deliberate actions of someone on the plane,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said.

“Shortly after take-off, between the Malaysian and the Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was shut down,” he said.

The US too has backed the ‘human intervention’ theory with a senior official saying that contact with the Boeing 777’s transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe, he said.

Missing jet’s system disabled by someone deliberately: Malaysian PM

Malaysia has decided to call off the search operations in the South China Sea, Prime Minister Najib Razak said.

Razak, who has come under fire over the “inept” handling of the crisis, called it a “situation without precedent”. “Fourteen countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft are involved in its search,” he said. The 61-year-old however remained optimistic. “With the new data that is coming in, we will be able to refine our search,” he said.

Razak also added that Malaysia had decided to call off the search operations in South China Sea.

“The Malaysian investigators have re-focused their attention on the crew and passengers of the flight. We are ending our operations in the South China sea. The investiagtors are looking at all possibilities,” he said.

The MH370’s communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into a flight on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Many theories have been floated to explain the sudden disappearance of the jet which include terror attack, piracy and pilot suicide.